Thank Ghoul It's Friday
by Oran M. Kamishorr
Summary: After the prologue that introduces the characters, the story follows four ghouls who contribute to the running of a questionable business– which isn't put under scrutiny until some of their more prominent customers start disappearing. Convinced that they're being framed so the CCG will target them, they start investigating their rivals in a similar establishment across town.


In the cases of ghouls, there are CCG.

But in the cases of human affairs there are the police.

And of the various temporary and permanent workers at the police station, there are a few that would be suspicious if closely examined.

Of the few workers there, there were two whom suspicion could even begin to be cast upon, at least in the sense of the CCG. Of course, there would always be corruption, but that wasn't what the CCG would be focused on.

One, a quiet girl who worked in evidence, wouldn't be suspicious in any conventional sense. That girl, Daisy, lived an ordinary life: she worked a nine to five job. Yet, she had no family of mention, no significant other, and only a small portion of friends– none of which ever came to visit her at work.

The other was a younger investigator, Asher, who seemed awfully tired at work. He wasn't all that good at catching criminals and so he didn't move up in any sort of rank very quickly. He, much like the girl, had no immediate family of mention. Asher always came into work tired, with the excuse that he'd been studying case files he'd failed to complete, but if he were to be investigated he'd easily fall into suspicion. After all, most ghouls hunt in the safety of night.

Oddly, though, he never fell under suspicion– was never visited once by officers of the CCG.

Often while working in evidence, Daisy was requested to bring evidence to many different officers who worked at the small little police station. Of course, Asher was no different to her– just another investigator– except that he was always asleep at his desk when she arrived with a box for him to sift through. She'd have to tap him on the shoulders and remind him every day to wake up. Sometimes before tapping him, she'd complain or say something that she wouldn't say if he were awake. After all, she had trouble talking to people. This time, she hesitated to tap his shoulder.

"How have they _not_ fired you?" she observed him, sighed, and gently slid the box onto his desk. He still just sat there with his arms crossed and his head down. It wasn't like he could reply when he was sleeping, and she knew that. Daisy didn't feel like hassling people when they were awake. "Surely they don't just keep you here to look at. I mean you're cute but not _that_ cute…"

"The captain likes me," he mumbled, his head shifted and one of his eyes flickered open and stared at her.

"I-" Daisy stepped back, fumbled her hands together, and almost bumped into another desk. The bastard had been awake this whole time, only pretending to sleep. "I didn't– well I did– I…"

"You didn't what?" Asher leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms.

Daisy was being put on the spot, and she couldn't deal with that.

"I didn't think you were awake! H-here's your evidence!" She stuttered and pointed to it and turned around as robotically as possible and ran back to the safety of the evidence room. She had work to do and he wasn't going to inhibit her.  
She started to wonder though, what other embarrassing things she must have said when she thought he was asleep. Her blood boiled a little bit, but she mostly felt shamed. She had something, though, finally to think about besides evidence.  
After all, she was getting bored.

Asher just looked on; he was actually ready to fall asleep on his desk now that Daisy was gone. Something was formulating in his mind aside from casework though.

They both stayed relatively far away from each other for the rest of the workday. It wasn't a hard thing to do, considering they had much different jobs. Until Asher got a lead for any of his cases, or until a senior officer decided to add him to one of theirs, he was stuck at his desk.

And Daisy worked running evidence to different officers or categorizing new evidence, or filing it away again. Luckily, she knew she probably wouldn't have to go back to Asher's desk until it was almost time to close. When it was time to close, though, she knew she was going to have to collect that evidence box from him– he never turned it in himself.

She tried to avoid him as long as she could, but she knew she'd have to go back eventually. When she did, he was asleep again. She got sort of defensive when she saw him with his head down again– first of all, she decided to keep her mouth shut. Second, she had to check to make sure he was sleeping if she wanted to avoid an encounter again. That was her reasoning, at least. Honestly, it would've been easier to just leave, but she wasn't always the brightest person.

She leaned close and kneeled at the desk to get a closer look. His breathing seemed to have slowed, so he was likely to be asleep, but she also thought anyone could fake that so it wasn't a real indicator. She slowly inched her hand towards his face and brushed aside his curly hair to pull up his eyelid. If he was sleeping, his eyes would be rolled up– if not, they'd be looking around as soon as she opened them. Her hand stopped halfway across the table– she was second–guessing herself about that. Did eyes roll up when people sleep? Or when they're dead?

Her hand started to tremble a little bit, because she couldn't remember. She hadn't usually pulled up people's eyelids when they were sleeping and especially not pull up the eyelids of a dead person.

Daisy sighed. She pulled her hand back and stood up again. She realized it didn't matter whether or not he was really sleeping. She grabbed the evidence box and returned it to its shelf back in the evidence room. She grabbed her coat and her keys, and switched off the lights. It wasn't her job to close up, but she figured it'd waste electricity if the captain gave Asher the keys and it might take him awhile to wake up. She sighed again as she looked back to his desk, grabbed her coat off the rack and… started to panic a little as he started stirring.

She turned around and ran into the wall.

"Hell!" she pushed herself away from the wall and tried to find the door.

_Shit shit shit shit shit_

"Daisy?" She heard a groggy voice just as her hand found the doorknob. She started to slowly turn it, in hopes that he was just saying her name in his sleep or something and that he _hadn't_ just woken up. She turned her head back to see him standing and gathering his things.

"I can see you, Daisy."

"No you can't."

"Yes, I can, Daisy."

"Can you _pretend_ you can't see me?"

"Ahh, Daisy, when did you learn to turn invisible?"

"It's a recent development," Diasy smiled. He was acting smart, but maybe he wasn't as much of a jerk as she thought he was. Still, though, she told herself it was best to avoid him.

"Are you going to do anything fun while invisible?" He started walking towards her. Her hard gripped the knob and pulled the door open, hoping she'd be able to leave and he'd not bring up anything strange she might've said while he was sleeping.

"Nothing in particular."

"Well… if you're not busy," he leaned past her to grab his coat off the rack, a little closer than she would've wanted him to be. "We could–"

"If you're paying."

"That wasn't what I was going to say."

"Wh– yes it was!" She almost caught herself questioning it, but she had to reassure herself– and him– that she knew exactly what was going on.

"Okay, yeah it was. There's a good burger place downtown. You said you liked those, right?"

"Yes," she gritted her teeth. She once complained about how hungry she was at work and how she really wanted a burger– while he was '_sleeping_.' She started to suspect that maybe he really was awake at every instance. In which case, he knew a lot more about her than she realized. She loathed her own life choices.

"Would you be okay with walking there? I could… walk you home afterwards," He pulled his coat over one arm, raised an eyebrow to accentuate his pause, and then put on another sleeve.

Daisy eyes stood wide for a second and thought: _damn his eyebrows_, and then she gave a little smirk. "That sounds delightful, actually."

Asher chuckled, his own thoughts were somewhat more farfetched as to say '_Wow, I wouldn't have pinned this one for a whore_.' "What's that smile for?"

"Nothing," she shrugged her left arm and walked out the door, and he soon followed.

Their date went as he said it would, accompanied by near–silent small talk that sprung mostly from things she'd said and done while he was pretending to be sleeping. She wasn't too thrilled that the conversations focused solely on her, and that she didn't mean to tell him most the things he knew.

He asked if her sister was still being a jerk to her, and if her ex boyfriend finally left her alone, and if the dog she took care of for a friend was still doing well.

She felt like she was walking around with an NSA agent.

Still though, she tried her best to enjoy it, after all, she was getting a meal or two out of it. Even if she had to listen to him talk for so long, she was sure he'd shut up eventually. If he didn't, she'd be sure to make him shut up.

He, on the other hand, was having a blast. Not only was he getting to try food he hadn't had in awhile, he got to spend the evening with someone he assumed was some lonely office worker who probably would put out if provoked the _right_ way.

The food was sort of awful, but neither of them was willing to admit it. It was actually a pretty horrible burger joint, but the decorations looked pretty so both of them figured the food would've been good.

The walk back wasn't as bad as the walk to. Daisy made an attempt to make a better conversation, especially after she'd eaten something, and by the end of the night, they were laughing, and almost not wishing to part at her door. Maybe things would have been better if they would've parted at her door, but that wasn't what happened.

At her doorstep, after she turned the keys, Daisy looked back, and he still just stood there, almost looking lost. He took a step closer, wondering if he'd regret it, brushed some hair from out of her face and she just stared at him. If there was a spark, she couldn't feel it– but that didn't matter to her. If there wasn't a spark, he was trying to make one, and that counted for something, right?

Daisy smiled, whatever move he was trying to make she was happy to encourage. He took another step forward and leaned toward her. She just stared, the corners of her mouth flickered up and she turned her whole body to face towards him. If this motion was an attempt, then she could do the rest from there. He watched her carefully to make sure it wasn't a missed reading, and then pressed his face to hers.

She saw opportunity and took it, bringing her hands to his face kissed him back, and took what would've been a peck and turned it into something else entirely. Like a rabidly horny teenager, she grabbed him by the necktie and dragged him back behind the door of her apartment without any resistance from him.

His hands fumbled and closed the door behind him without even attempting to pull away from her, following her every step until she awkwardly ran backwards into a wall. He started to feel sick– maybe from the gross food or maybe from the lack of oxygen, or maybe even the endorphins he was getting like crazy– but he made no attempt to stop her. He put his arms against the wall behind her.

She flipped him around so he was against the wall instead, and took a step back and huffed in air. "God, you're so gross," she sighed between breaths.

"No, you," He laughed, unawares.

She rolled her shoulders and looked him in the eye. Slowly, he irises ran red and her eyes started to fade black from the outer corners of her eye. A Kagune sprouted from her back and wiggled around.

"You're… a ghoul," he said, huffing. "Well, that's hot." He gave a half smile in an attempt to hide his surprise. He thought he'd be able to get out of the conversation if he just said the right thing maybe.

Her Kagune was a Rinkaku that looked like intestines with what resembled scorpion stingers on the ends. The stingers opened like some sort of claw and pinned his shoulders to the wall before he could make any move of escape. Though, she hadn't paid much attention to it, but he hadn't made any real attempt to move out of the way. It was common with terrified prey, but Asher didn't seem the terrified sort– unless his poker face was top notch.

"Well this is awkward," He said.

"I promise I'll be gentle," she sighed, a smile curling at her lips.

"This was gonna wait until _after_ I got laid, because I have _patience_." His right shoulder started to break free of the claw, with a Bikaku forming down the side that looked like the armor of only the shiniest knight. "But you've forced my hand," he said looking at his hand. He just attempted a half–rate pun.

Daisy just stood there, almost horrified. Not only was she not going to eat tonight, but he just made the worst _pun_ she'd ever heard anyone try to make.

"Oh my god, I was totally going to eat you!" She laughed and drew her claws back behind her. She brought her hand up to her face.

"What? I was going to eat _you_!" He laughed and walked away from the wall; he also couldn't help but laugh because _what are the odds_.

"So you were going to wait until after you got some, though? You're an _asshole_," she kept smiling and stepped towards him also. She brought her hand up to his face and examined him now that he didn't look like food. His eyes were nice red and black, like any other ghouls. She could finally appreciate the shape of his face though, with the eyes helping to frame it. She liked this one. She wanted to keep him.

"Well, it's not every day I run into someone I wanna bang that I'm not also tempted to completely devour," he brushed her hand away, but didn't step back or anything.

"True, true," She looked away, brought her arms behind her back and figured grabbing for his cheek was a little quick. I mean, they'd been grabbing at each other near moments before– but now it was different.

"So you understand?" An eyebrow was raised. Daisy was still looking at his eyebrows.

"I wasn't going to actually…" She looked away, a little embarrassed. She wasn't planning on taking advantage of him– that was just bait to get him into her apartment. She was actually going hungry at the moment, and just wanted someone to eat.

"What? I thought you said I was '_cute_,'" He mocked her voice and shrugged his shoulders up. Then just stared her down as she panicked to find an answer.

"W–who said it wasn't all part of my _master plan_?" She stammered and started to turn shades of red. She hadn't had anything close to a master plan.  
People made her nervous. She pulled her Kagune back into her back, but left her eyes as they were.

"_Master Plan_? Oh please, Daisy, you're not _that _smart, are you?"

"Yeah, no," She shrugged. It was probably an insult, but she didn't want to think about that. She was still hungry, after all. "So, you wanna go grab dinner for real this time?" She piped up a bit.

"Is the invitation to stay at your apartment afterwards still open?"

He definitely had a one–track mind.

"I'll think about it… first things first…"

She threw up the burger.


End file.
